Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Have you ever thought of the value of self-talk? I’d always seen it as a liability but there are ways in which it can help you… I adore open-area offices. When I started working in a newsroom 30 years ago — with a hundred reporters and editors, each with […]
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Reading time: Less than 3 minutes For some people perfectionism and writing go together like salt and pepper or a hammer and nails— you don’t have one without the other. Here’s some advice on how to fix that…. I injured my arm while making Hollandaise sauce, about six weeks ago. It took me a while
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Reading time: About 3 minutes Have you ever struggled with how to make writing easier? Here are some tips I’ve picked up as I’ve aged… I have a weird psychological quirk. Significant birthdays — ones ending in 0 — never upset me. Instead, I get freaked out by ones ending in seven. Somehow, the oddness
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Reading time: About 3 minutes Please don’t think me a zealot but today I’m going to tell you why writers should meditate… You may wonder why, shortly after waking up every morning, I head upstairs to my office and lie down on the floor and cover myself with a blanket. You’d think, after seven hours of sleep, I wouldn’t
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Reading time: About 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss an article written by Charlie Brooker… I hadn’t heard of Charlie Brooker until I received an email from my reader Bernadett Rosch-Tam.
Reading time: About 3 minutes We all let our writing productivity wane from time to time. Perhaps we’re frightened. Or tired. Or overwhelmed. Don’t let this happen to you! Is your writing as productive as it needs to be? Here’s a checklist that will help you figure that out… Do the most important job first.
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Reading time: About 3 minutes If you were give five extra minutes, what would you do with them? Say, could you spend them writing? Sometimes I catch myself wasting time, especially when I’m doing something I don’t like (such as working on my accounts for my bookkeeper. Yuck!) If you’re the kind of person who
9 productive ways to spend 5 minutes instead of checking your email (again) Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes We’re all short of time, so how on earth can we find the time to write? Here are some ideas… Last week I wrote about wasting time. Today, I write about finding it. While it’s certain that most of us have mind-manglingly busy lives, it’s also true that we can
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Reading time: About 3 minutes It’s highly likely that you mismanage your time. We all do! But writing time is another matter entirely… I protect my writing time the way a mother bear guards her cubs. I write first thing in the morning and I refuse to check my email (or Facebook or Twitter or
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Reading time: About 2.5 minutes Most writers aren’t terribly sporty but did you know you can help your writing by talking like an athlete? I’ve written before about how we writers seem addicted to self-sabotage by trash-talking to ourselves. I really don’t know how to write… My boss is going to hate this… Readers are
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